Stray Bullet Hits, Kills Man Sleeping in Anaheim Home

A man sleeping on the floor of his apartment Friday night was killed when an errant bullet from a drive-by shooting pierced the wall of his home and struck him in the head, police said.

Lt. Vince Howard said the unidentified victim was alive when he was found on the floor of his apartment by police. He was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he died.

The shooting occurred in the 2100 block of Mountain View Avenue about 11:05 p.m., he said. The street is dominated by apartment complexes, and is near Ponderosa Park at Haster Street and Orangewood Avenue.

Witnesses told police a group of men and women were outside arguing when a car drove by and someone in the car pointed a gun and fired several shots, Howard said. The group quickly dispersed, he said.

Howard described the slain man as an innocent victim.

“He was apparently an innocent person sleeping there when the shooting started,” he said.

One woman who lives next door to where the incident occurred, who asked that her name not be used, said that while there has been some violence in the neighborhood, she was surprised at a shooting.

But one neighbor who moved out of the area, Lorraine Ewing, said she wasn’t surprised at all.

“It was an awful, awful neighborhood,” she said. “We have two kids and we just had to get out of there. Street-type violence went on there all the time.”

Police said Saturday evening they could not release the victim’s name because they still had not reached his relatives.